Much is happening in the world
of LONMARK International. We are reaching out to new markets, looking for new
collaborative efforts, and employing new tools to do so. We are utilizing social
networking outlets and online collaboration tools to introduce a series of new
programs to make it even easier to learn, contribute, and benefit from
membership and industry involvement. Below is a summary of some of our new and
ongoing initiatives focused on broadening the adoption of LONMARK
International’s open interoperable standards:

The LONMARK International Marketing Committee
is a dedicated group of members exploring a wide variety of creative marketing
avenues for promoting and gaining adoption of the LONWORKS® platform. We are
very excited about the response and involvement of this new committee and
already we are seeing great ideas and plans. Many of the upcoming LONMARK
campaigns and activities seen in the coming weeks and months will be a direct
result of the creative and strategic accomplishments of our member-driven
Marketing Committee.

The new LONMARK International Lighting Advisory Committee was launched in
May 2009 with members stemming from a wide variety of players including
utilities, manufacturers of lighting devices and systems, integrators, and
industry consultants. This committee is working towards open standards using
LONWORKS platform and how we might help save energy for both indoor and outdoor
lighting systems through the use of intelligent controls. To see the latest news
and activities of the LONMARK International Lighting Advisory Committee, please
visit
http://www.lonmark.org/connection/solutions/lighting/.

The LONMARK Americas Career Center continues to be an excellent resource
for the intelligent buildings and environments industry. Here hiring managers
will find relevant applicants with who possess the distinctive skills specific
to the buildings industry while job seekers can create a professional
presentation of their qualifications and quickly find relevant industry job
listings. The LONMARK Americas Career Center is free for job seekers, and job
advertisement rates are priced extremely competitively. For more information,
visit
http://www.lonmarkamericas.org/7_Career_home.html.

A LONMARK International Blog is now available where members and
non-members have the ability to see short news items, post suggestions, share
ideas, work on standards, propose new work items, and network with others.
Please feel free to let us know your thoughts and ideas at
http://blog.lonmark.org/.

Live Online Training Classes and Webinars will be offered to anyone
anywhere in the world using online meeting tools. This new program is in beta
test now and we expect that it will be very effective in providing core
educational information about the LONWORKS platform. Our current training
classes will be offered as well as new educational seminars to a much broader
market. We believe one of our core responsibilities is to educate people on the
value and benefits of LONWORKS platform, and the capabilities of our members’
products and services along with understanding the core technology that powers
LONMARK International’s open systems.

The LONMARK International Magazine is going digital – and green - and we
will soon be delivering our magazine right to your in-box as a fully online,
searchable, linkable publication. Not receiving the LONMARK International
Magazine? Sign up for a free subscription at
http://www.lmimagazine.com/subscribe.php.

U.S. Smart Grid Road Map and LONWORKSThe U.S. government is in the process of defining the roadmap for the U.S.
smart grid which can potentially affect anyone doing work in the building
controls business as well as every aspect of the controls market including
commercial, residential, and industrial projects. Part of the effort NIST
(National Institute of Science and Technology) has been assigned is to develop
the list of standards to be included in this roadmap, of which the LONWORKS
platform is now a part as a result of passionate member support and the active
involvement of LONMARK International since the project’s launch in 2007.

The focus of the near-term efforts at NIST are to identify applications and
standards that are available today to modernize the grid. Another emphasis is to
identify areas where standards are lacking and start working to fill the gaps in
order to move quickly to an interoperable smart grid.

LONMARK International, its affiliate organizations, and its members have been
extremely active in identifying where the LONWORKS platform can be used to make
the grid smart. Now that the roadmap is out for comment, according to the U.S.
Federal Register notice, the LONMARK International community is working
diligently to ensure that it makes sense for the country and that LONWORKS
networking standards are represented in the areas we know it can benefit. After
all, there are tens of millions of electric meters installed today with LONWORKS
technology and roughly 100 million devices in total with LONWORKS technology
inside—a pretty good start. For the latest news on this initiative, please visit
the LONMARK International Energy Solutions page: http://www.lonmark.org/energy.

Continuing ISO/IEC Standards ActivitiesNow that the core protocol and several transmission media are ISO/IEC
standards (ISO/IEC 14908-1,2,3,4) the next phase of our efforts focus on the
higher layers of LONWORKS platform and the LONMARK International Guidelines. The
device interface definitions and the LONMARK International profiles, 14908-5 and
-6, are clearly defined and are going through the process now and we expect them
to make their way through the standards process in the next year. The end goal
is a comprehensive set of technologies, implementation guidelines, and
documentation that allows anyone to openly and interoperably implement a
LONWORKS technology solution anywhere in the world.

Navigating through the standards process from association work to national
standards body to international standards body can take many years. In the case
of the LONWORKS platform, LONMARK International has been working on this process
for most of its existence starting in 1994. For 15 years, efforts to get the
LONWORKS platform to become an international standard have taken hundreds of
thousands of dollars and countless man hours by staff and member volunteers to
get to where we are today. Once a technology becomes an international standard
though, the process is not complete. Some say the hardest part then begins – the
broad worldwide adoption of the technical standard as an “industry standard”.
Very often a technology that successfully makes its way through the standards
process never becomes an industry standard and falls away. There are many
reasons that this can happen: obsolescence, lack of industry support, lack of
marketing and promotion are but a few.

Our members and the industry agree that the LONWORKS platform is very much a
viable industry standard and is more prevalent today than any time in the past.
With the need for more energy efficiency and more intelligent systems, it offers
something unique and beneficial for many markets. And now that the LONWORKS
platform is an international standard, our efforts are redoubled to inform the
market of the value and benefits of this great technology. Our success is based
upon the solid technical foundation, the openness of the technology, and the
extremely strong support of our members.